Chapter Text
Keith and Lance had never…talked.
The two were on opposite sides on the spectrum in ways that they didn’t know about themselves. Lance was captain of every damn team you could think to say and tried his best to be president of every club he could wiggle himself into. He didn’t have a favorite season, because his wardrobe was amazing year round everyone liked it or not. He was the kind of popular that if anyone else wore some of the shit he’d bought, they’d be shunned for life and would never marry. Lance McClain was probably the only guy in school that everyone wouldn’t mind marrying.
Lance McClain was the kind of guy that chose to wear the crop top of the girls’ cheerleading team, the kind of guy to order one because none of the other girls would. He wore it under his football jersey with such ease that everyone thought it was meant to be joke. Lance McClain took it so far as to piercing his belly button for the hell of it. Boys “jokingly” flirted with him, pretending as if he wasn’t the best damn thing that ever walked the planet.
Keith was good at pretending that too.
Keith was also good at pretending as if Lance McClain going missing had zero effect on him whatsoever. He didn’t worry about it at first, at least not a lot. He remembers it was another shitty Tuesday where Lance was supposed to be glaring at him from his locker across the hallway long after the late bell rang and the halls became empty. Keith would awkwardly glare back from his spot next to his locker. They’d both look away and smile and acted as if the other never saw it before walking their separate ways. That was their relationship and they were never meant to be more than that, so to say Keith ignored his slight sadness on that first day in exchange of believing Lance was sick. That Lance had just missed a day of school. That’s what everyone had said.
The next day was a Wednesday that was arguably just as shitty.
In retrospect, Keith doesn’t remember a lot of this Wednesday on the third week of September. He doesn’t remember how gloomy the hallways looked that day or how un-funny everything seemed to feel. Or how red Lance’s mom’s eyes were, because she was too strong to cry in front of children, but weak enough to nearly collapse in the doorway when she knew no one had seen him. He doesn’t remember the way Lance’s sister, the black belt, the should-be model, the girl known to never cry or show her emotions in front of others, fought back tears as she asked him specifically at the end of that shitty third Wednesday in September, right next to Lance’s locker if he’d seen him. And then again under his tree on the outskirts of their mini-city.
It was quite the scene. If Keith remembers it.
But he doesn’t.
Without Lance, the town didn’t seem quite right. The football team never lost a game, and Keith (the skeptic that he was) could only blame in on the idea that Lance (or Lance's spirit or whatever the hell) was in the crowd somewhere or that maybe they started every away game with various pictures of Lance on the TV screens.
If he were honest, he was a bit jealous. He doesn’t think anyone would have really done that for him. Not because no one cared about him, he’s sure someone would look for him. Not because he was Keith Kogane, but because he also wasn’t Lance McClain.
Keith Kogane was the registered Goth of the school that they mostly used for projects involving any type of art at all as if he knew fucking anything about film or sculpture or crafting. He wasn’t a loner, just stuck to himself in a way that made people kind of avoid him. They’d include him in conversations and he’d give them a laugh or a smile, something to say that he was there. That he wanted to be there. And “they” was kind of always Lance McClain. He’d joked and smiled at Keith like he was his daily pleasure. Keith remembers the one day he passed by him in the hallway and told him he was too good for his eyelashes. Not to be nasty or mean, but just to joke around. Lance had passed him before he got to tell him he felt the same way about his. On another day, Keith told Lance life was far too boring to have shit eyelashes and Lance was too stunned to say anything. The shorter teen walks away, afraid his joke didn’t make it through before hearing Lance’s howling laughter from homeroom. Lance McClain was too good for the world. No one’s bones or skin or hair had been richer than Lance’s; no one’s had been richer than honey. But Lance’s was.
Keyword being was.
Was was was was was.
Was.
Keith Kogane can only think about how Lance was everything good in this shithole of a town as Lance (what was Lance) laid there under Keith’s tree in the middle of the woods. His body broken, just barely not in two and but enough to make his skull look concave. His blue eyes glassed over and what perhaps had been tears were now bloodied like the rest of his face. Magots crawled across Lance's skin and up his face while flies danced around him. It only reminded Keith of the ugly smell radiating off of him. The bone of Lance’s right arm splintered out of his flesh. His leg lay twisted an awful way and his insides spilled out of him as if they’d been staged. As if this is a horrible school play.
And Lance, as always, is the star of the show.
“Holy shit,” Keith whispers aloud. The wind whistles back holy shit is right but Lance is looking right at him. Or Lance’s eyes are staring right him, his mouth open what was probably surprise.
And then Lance’s eyes were not glassed over.
And they aren’t looking at Keith anymore.
“Holy fucking shit!”
Lance, the demon holy shit what the absolute fuck is that, twitches his—it’s—arm and yelps in agony. It groans and cringes at the snap crackle pop of Lance’s leg correcting itself. His head turns back to Keith and it looks almost as if his skull was never bashed in in the first place. Newly placed tear smear his own blood down his cheeks as he gasps like the wind was knocked out of him. He doesn’t even want to know what happened to his used-to-be spilled insides.
“Help,” he wheezes. “Please,” he asks again.
Keith realizes that everything he’s learned about the fight or flight response is complete bullshit.
“What the fuck?” he whisper yells. “Fuck. Fuck—fuck that. Why would I do that? So you can possess me instead? What, you gotta boyfriend that needs a body to possess too? McClain not enough for you?” Keith pulls out his pocketknife.
Lance sputters and gives an annoyed look. “Mullet,” he growls.
“Everyone knows he’s called me that before.”
Lance’s eyes tear up. The demon’s acting skills are on point. “Eyelashes.”
Keith skids down the hill, slipping on dead leaves surrounding them. “Shit, Lance!”
“Yeah! Shit, Lance!”
The shorter teen helps Lance off the ground and does his best to not get any of his blood on his jacket. He let Lance use him as a crutch, knowing that he didn’t really need it because his entire body just rejuvenated itself right before his eyes.
“What the fuck happened to you?”
“What the fuck happened to me? What the hell do you think happened to me? Some asshole tried to fucking take me out and failed.”
Keith’s eyes widen and he shakes his head. “No. No, he took you out. He took you the fuck out, Lance. You were dead, you were so dead.”
“But I’m here!”
Keith gasps in realization.
“What?” Lance whines.
“You’re someone’s boss battle.”
“What the f—”
“Just hear me out, okay?” Keith stutters out, still in disbelief. “Someone murdered you, they murdered you good, Lance. You were—you were—”
A pair eyes glare at Keith in denial, eyes as blue as the river. “I am alive. My heart is beating. I think.” Lance puts a hand over his chest and turns his head in confusion.
Keith ignores it. “Yeah, you were alive. Then you were dead. And now you are alive. It's like at the end of a game and you think you've won but you can't see that measly 0.5% on their health bar! How do you not remember dying?”
“Most people don’t remember things that haven’t happened, Mullet. The only thing I remember is walking home from school and waking up in this shitty spot.”
“Shitty spot? Of course, you could never understand the importance of scenery when it comes to—did you say you walked home?”
The taller teen scoffs and smirks. “Yeah, that’s what I said. I was walking home from school. The sun was just barely starting to set. But I bet, everyone’s been dying to see me.”
Keith doesn’t want to tell him that he’s been missing for two months or that his mother had a grey streak in her dark hair that she didn’t have before, or that there wasn’t a single lead as to where he could’ve gone. He doesn’t tell him how grey his skin was, or how it hadn’t rained in days and that the blood next to him was dry. So he doesn’t. “Uh, yeah everyone kind of misses you.” A pang of jealousy catches the words in Keith’s throat. “But you can’t see them.”
“What?”
Keith looks him in his eyes with a glare that isn’t as playful as Lance had been used to. “You do realize that whoever did…that to you must still be around, right? I mean, they didn’t even bother to cover up your body. They’re expecting you to be found. Or their going to come back to watch you rot. Or they’re going to come back and fucking decimate your body again, Lance.”
“You watch too much TV, for all I know you could be my killer!” Lance jerks away like Keith’s eyes burned him. “For all I know you’re the reason for the dried blood on the ground! This is your tree, isn’t it? You know this area better than everyone else—mm!”
Keith run forward and put a hand over his mouth before whispering calmly into his ear. “Yes, which means I know that sound carries out here, pretty boy. And if I was your killer, why the hell would I allow you to still be standing after watching you resurrect yourself!”
Lance licks his hand out of spite. “I didn’t know you were so…”
“Smart?”
“Creepy. But it doesn’t matter. I’m going to find my family. They’re probably worried about me.”
He frowns. “Hardly,” Keith lies. He sees the Lance’s wince and swears to himself. “But, oh, yes. Perfect. Just spontaneously show back up to school and pretend like everything’s over. Your face has been plastered all over every billboard across the damn state. Lance, you’ll hit national news.”
“What’s so bad about that?”
“Have you never watched a crime show…like ever? There’re gonna publicize you. And that’s gonna make you easier for your killer to find.”
“So what the hell do you want me to do, Mullet? Never talk to anyone ever again?”
“That’s what I do! You’ll do just fine! Now if you’ll excuse me—”
“You’ve gotta help me.” Keith begins to speak again, an obvious NO on the tip of his tongue, but he’s interrupted again. “Let's assume that I was murdered and I somehow came back to life. I can't see my family. I can't see my friends. All I have is you or your shitty hair and your dumb eyelashes. Come on, you’ve got nothing better to do! It’s not like you can come back to this spot if my killer is going to come back. You’re dead meat if you do. And this is the only place you like to be.”
It’s true. This tree is the only thing peaceful place in town, the only place with the right lighting and the right lack of anyone fucking else where he could actually get work down. It’s place right past a steep hill. Close enough to see the beach but distant enough for no one to see him. His older brother took him to this spot before he left for overseas. He’s right but…
“How do you know that?”
“Just a gut feeling.”
There’s a silent pleading in Lance’s eyes. They are pulling in Keith and he knows it. The beach waves are quiet and droning against his ears. He keeps the dried blood in his peripheral vision because he’s too afraid to look at it head on. Lance’s not-so-glassed- over blue eyes are no better. He rolls his eyes and decides he has nothing better to do.
“I need you to help me solve my murder.”
Keith promptly laughs in his face. “You’re really annoying. I should kill you for real, right here!”
Lance’s smile is coy, but goofy. “So you’ll help me then?”
Keith shrugs in a poor attempt to seem indifferent. “Hell, you’re the least boring thing in this shithole.”
Keith throws his black leather jacket over Lance’s shoulders and throws a pair of shades over his eyes. “I know a place we can go.”
“The city?”
“No.” Keith gives what’s supposed to be a smile. “My house.”